Hitting “Reset”

I loved my Nintendo Entertainment System. The year we got it for Christmas was a glorious moment for myself and my best friend – he’d had a Nintendo for years… but whenever we played at his house, we had to share the system with his two brothers (and sometimes his cousins). Now, we would have a system to ourselves!

The 8-bit Nintendo had a ton of excellent games… but one memorable design flaw. Dust would work its way into the cartridges (and the system itself) and from time to time, a game would either not load – or it would seize up (almost always at a critical moment). You could try hitting the reset button – which would, on rare occasions, do the trick – but more often than not, y0u’d have to power it down, blow both sets of connectors out, and then start it back up. The unfortunate part of this process when using most NES games was that you’d lose all or some of your progress up to that point – depending on whether you’d received a recent password to restore you to a particular point; or the odd game which had an internal battery an could save your progress.

Today, when we talk about resetting an electronic device – a computer or cell phone, for example – you’re looking to close all the running apps and to start it up clean… without a whole bunch of programs or apps clogging up the active memory. You’re looking for a fresh start, of sorts, without whatever old baggage you may have dragged along – to help that device operate more closely to its potential.

For me, I feel like the summer of 2015 is going to be all about “hitting reset.”

In the last few months, I’ve felt more and more like I’m operating “below capacity.” Part of it, certainly, has come from hitting the ripe age of 35 years old – which for some reason has seemed to be a significant milestone to me. Looking in the mirror, I’ve been contemplating what I would have envisioned for myself at 35 when it comes to my prayer life, my family, my general sense of well-being, and my service as a Chaplain/youth minister. And it’s been clear to me that there’s a lot of work to be done.

This sense of being clogged up has been confirmed by comments I’ve heard from students and colleagues I work with, who have (out of genuine friendship) challenged some of the way that I’ve been doing things.

So, for these reasons – and more – it’s time to hit reset. It’s time to look at what’s most important – and to make sure that these important things stay the most important. I’ve long wanted to have a better habit of prayer, to read more, and to become a better musician; my family deserves a more compassionate dad who spends less time reading about what ails the Oilers and more time going for bike rides and playing mini-stick hockey; and those I serve as a Chaplain/youth minister deserve better (and more fun) from me. So I’m heading into the summer of 2015 with some pretty ambitious goals, including a plan to pray & floss each day, to finish reading the Bible, to complete the DVD guitar course I bought 3 years ago (and haven’t even started yet!), to read twelve books, to exercise, and to complete some projects around the house.

I also am taking an honest look at all that I’ve been doing online – social media, YouTube, and here. I’ve already started to make some changes: cleaning out some of the YouTube videos I’d published but which just weren’t very good… and I’ve also gone through the archives here and gotten rid of half of the posts that were here. I want to ensure that whatever I’m writing, posting, or producing are both of good quality – and that they are something that serve you, those whom I am so blessed to serve.

So if you notice over the summer that my social media updates are happening less than normal, or that there isn’t much in the way of new content here… it’s because I’m hitting “reset.” For those of you whom I serve on a daily basis, those whom I visit less regularly, and those who only come to see me online: please pray for me. Pray that this summer of hitting reset is an opportunity for me to step up to the plate on those places God is asking me to do the most work (or to simply turn it over to Him and allow Him to work). Pray that the net result of these coming months make me a better Catholic Christian, husband, father, musician, and, once things start up again, a better Chaplain & youth minister.

And maybe… I’ll get a chance to play some of those old Nintendo games on my Wii.